Endless Reflection
by kidishcaresh
Summary: A little something I wrote for the Endless reflection challenge. To celebrate 20 years of Gundam Wing.


**Author notes: Written for the Endless Reflection Fandom challenge/project. A fun project celebrating 20 years of Gundam Wing**

**1\. Theme/Challenge: Choose a scene from Gundam Wing that had the most impact on you/the one that gave you a lasting impression or a scene that you can relate to the most. May it be from the anime series, movie, or manga; it's your choice. Once you have chosen your scene make the character/character(s) of your choice reflect in some way or another over that moment in their life. How you do this is up to you. (i.e. They're hallucinating back to that moment in time, PTSD (remember this is not restricted to the guys only, the girls were in the war as well), nightmares, dreams, take your pick or add your own twist. Keep in mind this is 10-15 years after the Eve Wars! :)**

**2\. Open-genre**

**3\. Open-pairing**

**4\. Story setting: Must be 10-15 years after the Eve Wars**

**5\. For one-shot fanfictions: Maximum of 5,000 words**

**6\. For multi-chaptered fanfictions: Maximum of FIVE chapters**

**7\. Fanfictions and fan arts must be created between April 7 and June 1, 2015.**

**8\. Deadline of entries will be on June 1.**

**9\. The compilation of all entries and the announcement of the winner of the fanfic challenge will be released and announced in August, respectively.**

**10\. For fanfiction dot net users: Publish the story/ies at fanfiction dot net. Indicate in the story summary that this is for the Endless Reflection Challenge. For non-fanfiction dot net users send us your entries at gwerchallenge at gmail dot com. Sorry I am spelling out these links since this site's feature tend to remove the links :P**

**11\. For fan arts, send us your entries at gwerchallenge at gmail dot com**

**12\. For updates, follow our twitter account at GWERChallenge**

**13\. Or you can check out GWEndlessReflectionChallenge dot tumblr dot com**

**Summary: Written for the Endless Reflection challenge.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC's.**

Her voice was fading as she spoke, doubt settled in his stomach. Should he take her to the hospital despite her request? No, he knew it was too late for that already…there was nothing he could do and so he'd take her there; to his field of flowers.

"Wufei…you…I-I was strong wasn't I? You are proud of me as your wife, yes?" she asked. Her voice barely over a whisper.

"Yes, you're the strongest. I won't call you Mei-ran anymore. You are stronger than anyone." he said fighting to keep his voice strong.

"Nah…you're…s-stronger…" she replied. He felt her relax and fought with the emotions raging inside him willing himself to stay calm for her sake. She sagged against him and deep down he knew, but his heart refused to accept what his brain was telling him.

"H-hey! Wake up! I've not yet shown myself worthy of being your husband! Nataku! NATAKU!"

He shot up in his bed with her nickname still on his lips. He lay for several minutes willing himself to calm down once more. It'd been 15 years since that day. It was strange how her death seemed to affect him so much he frequently relived it in his dreams and yet…and yet the destruction of his colony and all family he'd had left him strangely calm. He could look back and talk about it easily, but Mei-ran was still a topic only one other person could talk to him about.

He blinked and pushed the sweat soaked sheets off himself. The noise was soft, but in the silence of the night clear as could be. It took him all of ten seconds to recall Quatre's reunion party the other night and that Duo had ended up missing his shuttle home. He'd offered his friend the guest room for the night. Duo had refused at first of course, but to Wufei's reasoning of it being a waste of money to get a hotel room when Wufei himself lived 5 minutes by foot from the shuttle station and had a perfectly good guestroom that was only gathering dust at the moment Duo had been unable to argue for very long.

Wufei got up quietly and headed for the kitchen. He knew it would only make things worse if he woke the other now and so he set himself to making a kettle of tea. Most people wouldn't believe it, but Duo actually didn't care for coffee and especially not after night terrors. No Wufei knew Duo liked to drink Jasmine tea with a teaspoon of honey on nights like these. Jasmine tea because it was sweet, but not too sweet and very soothing and honey to sooth his throat as Duo tended to get quite vocal near the end of his nightmare.

"Sorry didn't mean to wake you." Duo said hoarsely as he entered the small kitchen and accepted the outstretched cup of tea.

"You didn't. I woke well over an hour ago. You didn't scream until half an hour ago." Wufei said sipping from his own tea; a mix of different tea leaves his grandmother used to make him before he left to fight in the war. She'd given him the recipe and he to this day still made it whenever he had the dream.

"Oh, well I hope it won't get ya any trouble with the neighbors." Duo said shrugging helplessly.

"Nah, Old Frank is deaf. I'd call it a miracle if he came to complain of your shouting" Wufei said quietly. This brought a small smile to Duo's lips.

"I can see the newspapers now…" he chuckled before taking another sip of his tea.

"Yes, screaming neighbor is miracle cure for deaf man." Wufei said chucking also.

Duo turned his gaze to the clock and sighed. Another 6 hours until morning. Joy…

"Ne Fei?" he said quietly. Wufei looked up from his own cup questioningly. Duo hardly ever used his nickname anymore.

"Yes?" Wufei replied calmly.

"Read for me?" Duo asked meekly. Wufei smiled and led the way to his small library/living room.

It was a well hidden secret the two shared. Duo actually couldn't read and usually used a device that would read what he needed to read out to him. From time to time during mission Duo would beg Wufei to read him from the books that Wufei always had with him and Wufei who loved to read had simply obliged and read to the boy who would listen to him and memorize every word of the story he was told. Wufei had on accident found out Duo couldn't read, but loved books even so and had gone through great lengths to help Duo get Heero to repair the reading device that Duo used to have texts turned to audio for him without Heero finding out that Duo couldn't read.

"What story would you like to hear tonight?" Wufei asked going over the many books that lined the walls of his living room.

"Nataku." Duo said pulling up some of the many pillows. Wufei turned and stared at Duo in shock.

"I wanna hear about Nataku. My neighbor back on L2 told me it's one of her favorite ancient Chinese tales. I wanna hear it." Duo said uncertain. Wufei's shock had surprised him.

"Oh, hm…let's see…yes this one." Wufei said willing himself to relax and picking out the proper book.

"You don't have to if you don't like it…it's just she was talking about it and well it sounds interesting." Duo said quietly.

"It's fine. I was just surprised." Wufei said sitting down and grabbing his glasses.

"You named your gundam that right? I figured you must like the story too." Duo said as he sunk into the nest of pillows he'd built himself.

"I did and I do. However the name of my gundam has little to do with this story." Wufei said quietly as he leafed through the old book carefully until he reached the page he'd been looking for. He put his glasses on and slowly began to read the story of the soulful gemstone turned human.

"Weird Chinese people…how's a stone turn into a human?" Duo said once Wufei finished the story.

"That's why it's a folk tale. There is a core of truth, but mostly it's fantasy. In this instant most likely it's a romanticized tale of vengeance and why are Chinese people weird? You westerners have tales of animals that speak the human language and a stone turning human is weird to you?" Wufei answered mock offended.

"Yeah well it's a heck of a lot more believable than a stone becoming human through some unexplained magic. At least our tales actually make a point like that you shouldn't get cocky on the homestretch just cuz yer enemy is slower." Duo shot back.

"True. Personally I prefer stories that actually hold a truth to them and tell of things that may or may not have actually happened, even if part of it has been given a magical tint to hide the sad truth. After all a holy warrior of justice sounds much better than a wife bent on revenge." Wufei answered.

"True I spose, but why take up a fight you know you can't win?" Duo said after some thought. Wufei smiled he loved debating the stories he read to Duo. The other had such a refreshing view on things.

"Isn't that exactly what we did? Fight the losing battle to protect those that couldn't fight for themselves?" Wufei asked.

"Well yeah, but…that was different. We knew there would come an end to the fighting even if we didn't live to see it. This Nataku was fighting a never ending battle…" Duo said quietly.

"Perhaps the answer lies in the grain of truth in this story…and Nataku kept fighting because if she didn't she'd fall appart…" Wufei answered after a long silence.

"We're not talking about the book anymore huh?" Duo asked noticing the subtle changes in his friend that he'd come to associate with the other's depression settling in.

"Perhaps…perhaps if he stopped fighting he'd have to acknowledge the pain…the truth…perhaps it was easier to close his heart and keep fighting…keep fighting and…keep her alive just a little longer…" Wufei whispered as he stared at something only he could see. Duo shifted and wrapped an arm around his friend. He knew words would mean nothing now and so he let his actions speak instead. He understood better than anyone the pain Wufei felt on this day. After all it was on this day 15 years ago that they both lost people very dear to their hearts.

**Hope you enjoyed it!**


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